Downtown Crossing/Financial District | Discussion

Boston Globe - March 22, 2009
Downtown's dark heart
Boston's shopping district loses its charm at night, becoming a lonely, desolate place apart

By Michael Levenson, Globe Staff | March 22, 2009

All was still, so still that the only sound was the buzzing of the sodium-colored street lights and the flapping of a pigeon in the partially demolished shell of the former Filene's building. Washington Street was empty, dotted with trash bags left by the shopkeepers who had long ago hauled them to the sidewalk and headed for home. Suddenly, two figures emerged from the doorway of a century-old apartment building. One was smoking a cigarette; the other held a pit bull on a leash.

"There's nothing to be afraid of," said the smoker, Alex Ogan, smiling and taking a puff, as his friend looked on, "because this is a ghost town."

To travel to Downtown Crossing at night, long after the lively throngs of after-work commuters, shoppers, and joggers have gone, is to enter a desolate and at times foreboding world sparsely populated by a Runyonesque cast of characters - bar hoppers, smooching lovers, a man looking for a fight, and a cane-toting 90-year-old called Princess Diana.

Between 6 p.m. and midnight, the neighborhood undergoes a profound transformation, from kinetic shopping hub to lonely alleyway. After the shops close at 8 and 9, the only movement on the street is from the occasional taxi, the rhythmic patter of its tires audible as it rumbles over the crisscrossed pavers that line the pedestrian mall along Washington Street.

While many streets in famously sleepy Boston can be quiet at night, the feeling here is different. The lack of all but commercial traffic makes it seem a district apart from the rest of downtown - so quiet that the click of heels echo from a block away and you can hear the horns honking on Tremont Street.

Downtown Crossing is one of the country's last remaining pedestrian malls, a vestige of the 1970s that was intended to enliven American downtowns by blocking them off from traffic but instead made many of them seem eerie and forlorn, particularly at night. At 11:30 p.m., surveying the stillness outside his condo on Washington Street, with Ogan and his pit bull, Twister, Kevin Barron offered an idea, unbidden.

"We need to open it up to traffic," said Barron, who moved to the street in 2001. "We are so sick of this. It's plagued by loiterers at day and a ghost town at night."

Ogan nodded. "From a purely residential convenience standpoint, it would be helpful," he said. "Newbury Street works great."

Ogan moved to Washington Street from Somerville's Davis Square six months ago, he said, to be closer to his job as an investment manager in Copley Square.

"I wish my neighborhood were nicer," he said, "but I love my apartment."

When the evening began at 6, Downtown Crossing was at its liveliest, jammed with men and women with garment bags and briefcases, teenagers gabbing on the sidewalk, shoppers carrying bags, vendors hawking roasted nuts, sausages, fruit. Snippets of conversation filled the air.

"I gotta go! See ya, kid."

"I sent the e-mail and CC'd Brian."

But as the sun dipped behind the skyscrapers and the shops closed, buttoning up their gates, Washington Street began to empty.

"Downtown is dead-town at night," said Omar Lopez, a baseball cap vendor who packed up his pushcart at 7. At 8:30, the bustle had become a trickle. At 9:30, the street was mostly still. Mary Ann Ponti, who has lived on the street for seven years, stepped out of her building, trailing her Yorkshire terrier, Cannoli. She spotted the elderly woman with the cane, another resident of the street, carrying a bag from Wendy's.

"Hi, Princess Diana!" Ponti said, and they chatted briefly.

"I love living here," Ponti said, explaining that she can walk to her job in the Financial District and to her kung fu class in Chinatown. "I'm always meeting people I know in the Crossing, which I like because this is community."

Then she went back inside. The street was lonely again. Taxis that had inched along earlier sped through, unimpeded. At 10:30, a burst of life hit the street as a crowd of theatergoers left a performance of "Dirty Dancing" at the Boston Opera House. And then, just as quickly, they were gone, into cars, buses, and the subway.

At 11, with the street barren, a large man with a bristling crew cut appeared. His speech was slurred. "Bunch of nerds!" he said to a bespectacled reporter and photographer, who did not argue and walked away.

Leaving a bar, John Hodgkins and Dwayne Theriot stopped at the former Filene's building. They peered over a fence at a gaping hole in the ground, and a sheared-off wall, signs of a stalled effort to convert the building into a residential and retail tower.

"Dude, this is worse than the Big Dig," Theriot told Hodgkins.

"It's a scar," said Hodgkins, who has worked downtown for 15 years.

Still, he said, the area could come back to life, like Times Square in New York, mixing nostalgia and buzz. This is music to the ears of city officials, who say new restaurants and plans for 750 housing units by 2011 will eventually revive Downtown Crossing.

"I think it does have potential to be very strong," Hodgkins said. And then he and Theriot were gone, down into the subway, and all that was left was the night.

After six hours in Downtown Crossing, it was quiet again, and still. A horn honked in the distance. The street lights buzzed. A taxi rumbled past.

Michael Levenson can be reached at mlevenson@globe.com.
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I think this is just another fluff article from the globe.

I've heard that Dirty Dancing has really liven up the area, at least pre theater. Once the Suffolk and Emerson dorms and theaters open there should be even more life at least in that part of Washington St., not to mention the college's private police force. Time to turn the old RKO into a concert hall and not a storage space. They should also include a performance space in the planned project across from the Opera House. Harvard's ART has talked about a downtown space in the past.

As I've said before two of the most important things they should do is 1) make the street and sidewalk level like Winter St. and 2) allow vehicles after 7 pm. Residents and visitors can then drive or take cars to their destinations or homes. At this point it's the chicken/egg scenario there aren't enough destinations to attract more people and there aren't enough people to attract more destinations.

At this point exactly who do they think would be driving up Washington St after 11. Probably not the type of people you would want in your neighborhood. It could become an extension of the zone

From Chowhound - Boston
I've become a fan of this place too(Dylan's). 1 great advantage for me is that it's very close..:), the staff is very friendly. I've had the kobe meatloaf, mac n cheese, and crabcakes.

BTW, the play Dirty Dancing has been a huge boon to this area. Fajita's and Rita's was even crowded the other night..:)
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http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/604146
 
The current owner of the RKO wants to gut the space for offices. They've approached several architecture firms to do drawings, but there's the matter of the Midtown Cultural District protecting the space. I suspect there will eventually be unpermitted work to demolish enough of the space, a slap on the wrist fine claiming there was a change of use relieving them of the responsibilities to maintain the theater as stated in the cultural district, followed by more cheap office space. Given how well the Gaiety was protected along the lines of this argument, you get the idea.
 
Lurker said:
The current owner of the RKO wants to gut the space for offices. They've approached several architecture firms to do drawings, but there's the matter of the Midtown Cultural District protecting the space. I suspect there will eventually be unpermitted work to demolish enough of the space, a slap on the wrist fine claiming there was a change of use relieving them of the responsibilities to maintain the theater as stated in the cultural district, followed by more cheap office space. Given how well the Gaiety was protected along the lines of this argument, you get the idea.
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One of the Back Bay xenophobes suggested that Berklee buy/redo the place and move their performance hall there and turn the current one into dorms (so they wouldn't build their tower). I think Berklee politely said "Yes, interesting" and moved on, but it was suggested.
 
cden 4

I saw your reply with Grafton Street in Dublin. Grafton Street is actually a hybrid of Newbury without any cars. The more mass market retaillers that are needed in any city and that have stuck or were with Downtown Crossing are up on and off of O"Connell Street north of the GPO. Most of the stores in Grafton Street are small with the larger stores being HMV or higher end department stores along the lines of what Bonwit's used to be. Dunnes Stores and the big English retaillers are up off of O'Connell Street, which is also closer to the suburban trains (Tara Street / DART) and the Luas. The LUAS comes close to Grafton Street, but the bus transport in Dublin, which is still the major people mover concentrates on O'Connell Street and the Quays along the River. Also, the LUAS to Grafton Street serves the more wealthy south of Dublin, not the the less well off part. It is kind of like the Green line ending at Arlington Street and not going on to Boylston.

Winter Street has a slightly smaller width as Grafton Street with max 5 story buildings, not the 6 to 9 (Provident SB / 30 Winter excepted) that DTX has. This allows for more sunlight into the street, making it more pedestrian and less "I am not going to let my teenage daughter walk through here" kind of look.

Please also remember that Dublin has had its Lafayette Place debacle (The ILAC Center) and it has no where near the suburban mall structure and dense suburban downtown retail structure (Newton Center, Porter Square, Quincy Center, Central Square) that greater Boston has.

Also, let's not beat around the bush. DTX has a huge "Young Urban Maggot" problem. Many women I work with in town avoid DTX except a lunchtime when a good portion of the Yummie population is in school or sleeping in. The Dublin version of this is in and around O'Connell Street as well. The County and City government have made efforts to clean the place up but I have never been told to watch my camera and how I am holding it one block from Macy's as I was in Dublin.

Also, I was in Dublin in July. That picture is great but the country is starting to hurt (Think Arizona / Florida / Imperial Valley type of vacancies in housing and soon to be Houston 1980's vacancies in office space in Dublin). Let's take a retail vacancy report for Grafton Street when this was taken versus Grafton Street in Summer 2010.
 
CLICK:

washingtonandkneeland.jpg

Photo: MIT.
 
^ 1955 or 56. You'll find it in this treasure trove discovered by charlie mta.

Search under "Kneeland." I trimmed the photo a bit, top and bottom.
 
Or how about this for how Chinatown could/should/used to look before its heart turned into a parking lot and the signs went all tame and boring. Click to enlarge:

00 bos chinatown 1955.jpg
 
Ablarc, can a city have more than one neighborhood that serve (basically) the same purpose? It seems everyone wants either a SoHo or Times Square, in Fort Point, in the Seaport, in DTX, near Fenway, on Causeway Street, Government Center, and so on.

I mean, it seems to me it would make more sense to have neighborhoods that served different, unique purposes. Fort Point for the young hipster, club-going scene. DTX for the local shopping, living, and dining. Seaport for the business travelers and their families. Fenway and Causeway St. for sports bars and the like. Government Center as the civic center of the city (gov't, schools, police/fire HQ, residential, etc.)

Wouldn't the city work more effecitively if certain neighborhoods had certain purposes, or attitudes? You want to dance until 3am, you go here. Can't get into the game, watch it there. Maybe it would be too suburban (this here, that there), but encourage (minimal zoning) certain establishments in certain areas? Maybe DTX would be more vibrant if people didn't have 3 alternatives to it (and had a good, solid reason to LIVE there.)
 
kennedy said:
Ablarc, can a city have more than one neighborhood that serve (basically) the same purpose? It seems everyone wants either a SoHo or Times Square, in Fort Point, in the Seaport, in DTX, near Fenway, on Causeway Street, Government Center, and so on.

I mean, it seems to me it would make more sense to have neighborhoods that served different, unique purposes. Fort Point for the young hipster, club-going scene. DTX for the local shopping, living, and dining. Seaport for the business travelers and their families. Fenway and Causeway St. for sports bars and the like. Government Center as the civic center of the city (gov't, schools, police/fire HQ, residential, etc.)

Wouldn't the city work more effecitively if certain neighborhoods had certain purposes, or attitudes? You want to dance until 3am, you go here. Can't get into the game, watch it there. Maybe it would be too suburban (this here, that there), but encourage (minimal zoning) certain establishments in certain areas? Maybe DTX would be more vibrant if people didn't have 3 alternatives to it (and had a good, solid reason to LIVE there.)
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It depends on how large a city of course. NYC has two Chinatowns.
 
This could be very, very bad for DTX:
Consumerist.com
Is Borders About To Go Under?
By Chris Walters, 10:07 AM on Wed Mar 25 2009, 6,317 views

Yesterday's post about Borders closing down its unprofitable CD and DVD sections prompted a tip from the owner of a small music label. He says his distributor has already cut off shipments to Borders once for nonpayment (in November 2008), and on Monday the distributor warned labels that they'll have to agree not to hold him "liable on any future shipments to Borders in case they file for bankruptcy." Borders' CFO left in January, which is rarely a good sign for a troubled company. And this morning, the Detroit Free Press notes that the bookseller is facing being delisted from the New York Stock Exchange. We may not have to wait long to find out; CEO Ron Marshall is hosting a conference call with analysts and investors next week.
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Someone I know from LiveJournal who works at Borders DTX says the store is not only doing well, but is actively hiring.
 
^^ That doesn't surprise me. It's always packed in there. There are probably a few other stores in the same boat.

But if the corporate parent is going down, the baby gets thrown out with bathwater. Hopeful the the landlord is on the ball and offers the space to B&N at bargain basement prices.


Or move the original Bargain Basement into the space until their new home is finished.
 
Her LJ remark, and mine, were in the context of Borders possibly deciding to selectively close some stores. Not the whole chain going under.
 
Right, in that case the DTX Borders is assuredly safe.

But that is the same tactic that Linens & Things and Circuit City tried, and we know how that worked out for them. Hopefully Borders will have better luck.
 
I suppose Chapter 11, followed by a scoop-up by B&N, is one possibility. In that case I think they'd want to keep DTX.
 
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